Skinny Love
by lookalittlegreen
Summary: "I told you to be patient, and I told you to be fine…" Edward moves to Forks with his family and falls head over heels for the quiet girl in his art class. But Bella has been with Jacob for over a year now, not to mention the secrets she's hiding. Written as a challenge to myself. Rated T for adult themes
1. The Challenge

This first chapter is an author's note to describe the point of this story.

It has come to my attention that I am pretty terrible writer in the realm of story/plot development and in terms of finishing stories with any degree of timeliness. In order to help remedy this for myself, I'm challenging myself with this writing exercise.

The Challenge:

Write a 10-chapter Twilight fanfic story. Each chapter will be based off or inspired by a song. The list of songs will be the first 10 songs that pop up on my Pandora station. The 11th song that comes on will be the title of the story and must be used to tie all the chapters together. Here is the list of songs that came on the Pandora station. In other words, here is the list of chapter titles and the story title that I will attempt to base this story on:

Comes and Goes (In Waves) by Greg Laswell

Out Loud by Dispatch

The A Team by Ed Sheeram

Secrets by One Republic

Arms by Christina Perri

The Scientist by Coldplay

Angel by Jack Johnson

Don't Look Back by Kasey Anderson

Star Mile by Joshua Radin

More than Life by Whitley

Skinny Love by Bon Iver

I'll admit, the 11th song totally threw me! This should be fun! I'll post a chapter every week on Sunday evening. Let me know what you think of my little experiment!


	2. Chapter 1: It Comes and Goes (In Waves)

Chapter 1: It comes and goes in waves

"This one's for the faithless, the ones that are surprised

They're only where they are now regardless of their fight.

This one's for believing if only for its sake.

Come on friends get up now, love is to be made"

~It Comes and Goes (In Waves) by Greg Laswell

The Volvo engine purred gratifyingly around me as I pulled into the parking lot of Forks High, my sister in the passenger seat. As far as I knew, the Volvo was one of the very few good things to come out of this move to Forks. I knew my dad was being given a golden opportunity as chief of pediatrics at Forks Community Hospital, but moving from the big city of Portland to the tiny fork in the road that was my new home was a culture shock in the extreme sense. My parents had bought me the Volvo as a way of saying "sorry we pulled you out of your high school your senior year and dropped you in this God-forsaken place."

Alice reached across the console and lightly squeezed my shoulder, pulling me out of my thoughts. "Hey," she said softly. "This place will be different, Edward. I know it will." She smiled at me encouragingly as she gracefully slid out of the passenger seat and squared her shoulders to face the stares and whispers that came with being a new student in a small school. I was two years older than her, but she had always been my rock.

Alice's reminder of what we had left behind in Portland was not exactly a welcome one. Alice and I had been taken from our biological parents by child protective services when she was 5 and I was 7. We lived in group homes for four years before the judicial process finally worked to revoke our birth parents' rights and we were adopted by Carlisle and Esme. There's a certain stigma that comes along with being a foster kid that we were never really able to shake in Portland. Alice believed we would be able to start over in Forks. I was skeptical.

I sighed deeply as I turned off the Volvo and joined my sister outside. We had just barely missed the first day of school here – we were starting two weeks late – but it was obvious from the speculative glances we were getting that we were definitely the new kids. Mom and dad had helped us arrange our schedules with the school the previous week, so now all we had to do was find our classes, try our hardest to make some friends, and hopefully not earn reputations on our first day.

After stopping in at the office and being each handed a map of the school, I walked Alice to her first class. She was strong, poised, calm, and smiling. At least… on the outside she was. I knew my little sister well enough to know that she was terrified of these people. Alice had been through some pretty rough shit in life and she was always afraid of new situations.

"Remember what mom told us about trying to picture them all in their underwear?" I asked Alice, trying to lighten the mood a little.

"Yeah…" she replied hesitantly.

"Well," I replied, pointing toward a bubbly-looking cheerleader type girl with bouncing curls, "I'd bet money that hers have little bumble bees on them and say 'Monday'."

Alice cracked a smile. She nodded her head toward a kid with thick glasses, bad acne, and a pile of books in his hands. "I'll bet that guy is secretly a fox under those clothes. I'm picturing him in a zebra print banana hammock."

"Gross, Al!" I replied, laughing. "Keep your secret porno fantasies to yourself!"

In the time we had been laughing together, we had made it to Alice's first class. "I'll save you a seat at lunch," I said, turning to head back in the direction of my first class. I was about to walk away when she grabbed me hard around the waist.

"Thank you," she whispered into my chest, "you're the best big brother in the world."

I smiled awkwardly, giving her a one-armed hug in return. My sister and I were closer than most siblings and I loved her dearly, but I wasn't going to make any friends in this school my hugging my family in the hallway. "Yeah, well," I murmured, blushing slightly.

Alice quickly straightened up, threw me a huge cheeky grin and a wink, and twirled into her history class.

As I was a senior with most of my graduation requirements fulfilled, I had opted for a double-period of art to start my day. I had taken lots of art classes in Portland, so this was my comfort zone. I wasn't really the best at painting or drawing, but I loved working with mosaics and collages. I could spend hours constructing something beautiful out of trash, spare parts, or magazine clippings. When Alice and I first went to live with mom and dad, they encouraged us to express ourselves in creative ways. I found out that turning something most would consider trash into something that could be considered art was therapeutic. Dad says there's a psychology thesis in there somewhere, whatever that means.

Lost in a combination of my thoughts and my map, I didn't notice that I was turning into a hallways lined with lockers on either side until I rammed my elbow into something solid. "Ow!" the something cried.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry," I said turning around to apologize to whomever I had run into. I'm not sure who or what I was expecting to see when I turned around – maybe a bitchy popular girl who was going to besmirch my name to the entire student body within the hour – but I was not expecting to see her. My first impression of her was that she was small – almost too small. The top of her head didn't quite reach my chin and she couldn't have been more than 100 pounds. My second impression was that she had the most beautiful face I had ever seen. Her big chocolate brown eyes and long, shining hair the color of dark rum left me breathless.

She was rubbing the back of her arm where I had bumped her and, to my surprise, she had tears in her eyes. I started to panic. "Oh, Jesus, are you ok? I'm really, really sorry. I didn't realize I hit you that hard. Should I take you to the nurse or something? Do you need an icepack?"

In the midst of my panic, she took a deep breath in through her nose, and then smiled slightly. "It's ok," she said quietly, looking down at my knees, "you didn't hit me that hard." She wiped the water from her eyes and then peeked up at me. "Are you alright?" she asked. "I hope I didn't get in your way. I was just getting a book from my locker." She turned back slightly, indicating her open locker beside her.

"Me? Oh, yeah, I'm fine," I replied, a little stunned. "I was the one who ran into you." I immediately added sweet, forgiving, and a bit self-conscious to the list of things I knew about this girl. In doing so, however, I realized that one thing I didn't know was her name. "I'm Edward," I said, sticking my hand out for her to shake.

Still looking down, she eyed my hand as if it was holding a weapon. Again peeking up at me through her lashes, she quickly stuck her hand in mine and gave one quick, firm shake. "I'm Bella," she replied, letting go almost immediately. In the instant that her hand was in mine, it felt cool and soft. I had the strangest urge to lift it to my face and rub my cheek against her palm.

Stowing my newly developed hand fetish to examine later, I wracked my brain for a reason to keep talking to her. "Um," I began, "I'm new."

_Great, Cullen… smooth… _

Bella smiled, a little bigger this time. "I know," she said, with a bit of humor in her voice. And hell if the sound of her voice with the trace of a laugh didn't just make me want to run away with her…

"Well," I continued, hoping to get her to speak more, but just then the warning bell sounded. "Shit," I muttered, "I'm gonna be late. The teacher will hate me already."

Bella's eyes snapped up to mine, looking at me for real for the first time. She seemed concerned for my inevitable lateness. "What class do you have first?" she asked.

"I have art," I replied, looking up and down the hall like a sign that read _ART CLASS THIS WAY _ would magically appear at one end.

Bella, still looking me right in the eye, smiled and I swear the lights just flickered a little. "I have art first period, too," she said. Quickly, as though she just realized what she was doing, she looked back down at my knees. "I could, um, maybe walk you there," she muttered, unsure. "But if you'd rather not walk with me," she backtracked, "Mrs. McCarty won't mind if you're a little late."

_Why would anyone pass up an opportunity to walk with this girl?_

"Yeah, Bella, I'd love to walk with you. If that's ok…" I smiled at her, hoping to win her over. Mom always says my smile is my "money maker." Moms… they say weird shit like that.

Belae grinned again – just a little – and turned to shut her locker and pick up her bag. As we walked together down the hall, Bella kept her eyes to the floor. She had a look of concerned concentration on her face. It was like she was trying to figure out a calculus problem – one that her life depended on. "Hey," I began, missing the conversation we had been having. "How's your arm? Are you sure it's ok?"

To my shock, her face scrunched up even more. "Yeah, it's fine," she replied. Then, so soft I almost couldn't hear she said, "thank you for asking." So fast I might have imagined it, she reached up to rub something out of her eye. Was she crying again?

"Bella," I started, unsure. "Is… is there something wrong? Can I help? You can be honest with me about your arm, you know. My dad's a doctor. He can help if I really messed it up. I promise."

She closed her eyes tightly and for a moment I thought she would burst into tears. Before I could panic too much, though, she squared her shoulders, opened her eyes, and looked at me. It was almost like she was angry. "You know, Edward, you don't have to be so nice to me. You don't even know me," she said harshly.

I was shocked. The sweet, shy girl I had met back at the locker had turned on me. As much as I hated to admit it, her anger was glorious. She was even more beautiful than she had been a moment ago. I stood frozen in the doorway of the classroom with my eyebrows raised, watching her walk away to the front corner of the room and plop her things down on the table there.

Well, the way Bella was acting toward me now was at least what I was used to. Back in Portland, it was pretty common for kids to shun Alice and I for no reason. I sighed, realizing that I had been right. This place wouldn't be any different.

_Get a grip, Cullen_, I thought to myself. _Bella's probably the most popular girl in school. Of course she doesn't want to be friends with you. _

I didn't realize I was still staring in Bella's direction until a young woman in tuxedo pants and a baggy, holey grateful dead t-shirt stepped into my line of sight. "You must be Edward," she said. "I'm Mrs. McCarty. Welcome to Forks High."

"You're the art teacher?" I blurted stupidly. Mrs. McCarty just laughed.

"The principal and I have an arrangement. When he told me I had to wear professional attire to class I told him he could pay for my dry cleaning bills. Do you know how hard it is to get paint out of a silk blouse?" I slowly shook my head, a little stunned. This teacher seemed cool as shit. I knew Alice, who had art class right after lunch, would love her instantly.

"Why don't you take a seat over in the front corner," Mrs. McCarty suggested, gesturing toward the table where Bella sat alone. Looking around, I realized that she was the only one who had a table all to herself, just confirming my suspicion that she must be the popular girl in school. I remembered in Portland some girls had been so popular they were practically untouchable.

Deciding to just mind my own business from now on and admire Bella from afar, I slunk cautiously to her table. Tentatively I placed my bag down in the seat across from her. "Sorry," I explained, "Mrs. McCarty told me to sit here." Belle just nodded without looking up at me.

Soon Mrs. McCarty started class, thankfully without making me introduce myself. I took notes like the dutiful student while she described the method of cross-hatching, showing examples on the overhead projector as she talked. Occasionally I would glance at Bella, who was studiously not looking in my direction. Before long, Mrs. McCarty was describing the project we would be working on for the remainder of our double class period.

"I want you to pick an object or an idea that has contrast," she was saying. "A dark object on a light surface, or vice versa. Go ahead and get started. I'll come around in a bit to take a look at your progress and provide suggestions."

Silently, I reached for the paper and pens that had been placed in the center of our table. As I sat trying to decide what I could put on the paper, Bella cleared her throat timidly. "I'm sorry, Edward," she spoke quietly. "It's just that… It would be better if we weren't friends."

Stunned, I stared at her. This girl's moods changed like the tide, only more frequent and less predictable. "Look, Bella," I told her. "If you don't want to be friends with me I get it. I'm used to it."

"It's not that, Edward, it's just… Look. I'm… I'm not supposed to be friends with boys, ok?" Her cheeks reddened at her confession. That was definitely not what I was expecting. Did she have a super religious family maybe? Or a very strict military-style dad?

"Okay," I began tentatively. "Maybe, we could just be friends during art class? I mean, no one would have to know." Bella looked at me then, her brown eyes big and just a little scared. "I promise," I continued, "to ignore you at all times outside this room."

Slowly, Bella smiled. She didn't say anything to my request of art-class friendship, but she nodded. Smiling at each other, we continued with our class project.

_Well,_ I thought, _I guess I succeeded in making one friend, even if no one's allowed to know about it. Maybe Forks really will be different…_


End file.
